Monday Mindset
– an uncommon approach to school, sports, and life –

Today’s Monday Mindset: What to Do When Things Go Wrong

In today’s Monday Mindset, I want to share with you what to do when things have gone wrong in any aspect of your life, with family, in a sporting event, in business, with your job, with school.

The first thing to know is things will often go wrong. You can’t avoid it. It’s unavoidable in life, unexpected things happen, or even with your best laid plans with doing the best you can with what you know, things don’t always work out.

You know that, I know that, but it’s always difficult when we experience it.

Here’s what not to do.

What not to do is to make excuses and to blame others.

Here’s what to do.

Focus on yourself. Yeah. Let me say that again. Focus on yourself. And if you listen to last week’s Monday mindset, you heard me say, focus on others, don’t focus on yourself. That’s when you’re in the process.

But after the fact, the best thing you can do is focus on you.

After a basketball game, I always tell players, reflect what could you have done differently? Not what should the referees have done differently? Not what could the coaching staff have done differently? Not what should your teammates have done differently? What could you have done differently?

No basketball player in the history of the game, no athlete in the history of sports has ever played a perfect game. Every athlete can reflect back on their performance and find things they could have done that could have impacted the outcome of the game. The same can be said of life, in any aspect of your life.

If something’s gone wrong, if you haven’t won in a given aspect of your life, reflect back and blame yourself, take responsibility. Don’t put the blame on others. Don’t blame someone else.

Accept your responsibility for yourself. You lost a game and you scored 30 points. Don’t pat yourself on the back. You could have done more. Yes, even scoring 30 points, you could have done more to have helped your team win the game.

You don’t have to beat yourself up, but evaluate and identify what you could have done to have impacted the results.

When you take that level of responsibility, that level of ownership, you’re truly embracing a champion’s mindset.

Put that into practice today.

Read more – Mistakes Require Action